19-23 Crown Road, The Crown Inn

Several old photos of The Crown Inn (or Crown Hotel), a modern photo & a photo of the old wooden door.

Crown Inn This dates from 1544. Stage coaches used to travel down High Street from Oxford and Wycombe to the Crown, where there was space for changing of horses and stabling. Heresay has it that there were four stables for 'heavy horses' which were made available with a groom and at a price (allowing the owner's horses to rest) for pulling the coach to the top of Shotover Hill, after which they were returned to The Crown. As was often the case the earlier owners combined the businesses of farming and owning an inn and this was the case here. The Crown Hotel or Crown Inn was located on the coaching route until this changed at the end of the 18th century when the business declined and the Crown Inn built the Crown tap on Church Road accessed from the new London Road route by a lane called 'Office Lane' as this was where the auctioneer’s office was in the little lane opposite the doctor's house and the horses and carts used to come down there from the main road to the auctioneer’s office.

Until 1909, there was a pig, sheep, and cattle market held once a month in the Crown yard on a Tuesday.

The Crown Inn is understood to have given up its licence in 1938. It was converted into two dwellings by Cullums the builders.